Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity [Hardcover]

Larry W. Hurtado (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

This outstanding book provides an in-depth historical study of the place of Jesus in the religious life, beliefs, and worship of Christians from the beginnings of the Christian movement down to the late second century.

"Lord Jesus Christ" is a monumental work on earliest Christian devotion to Jesus, sure to replace Wilhelm Bousset's "Kyrios Christos" (1913) as the standard work on the subject. Larry Hurtado, widely respected for his previous contributions to the study of the New Testament and Christian origins, offers the best view to date of how the first Christians saw and reverenced Jesus as divine. In assembling this compelling picture, Hurtado draws on a wide body of ancient sources, from Scripture and the writings of such figures as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin to apocryphal texts such as the "Gospel of Thomas" and the "Gospel of Truth."

Hurtado considers such themes as early beliefs about Jesus' divine status and significance, but he also explores telling devotional practices of the time, including prayer and worship, the use of Jesus' name in exorcism, baptism and healing, ritual invocation of Jesus as "Lord," martyrdom, and lesser-known phenomena such as prayer postures and the curious scribal practice known today as the "nomina sacra."

The revealing portrait that emerges from Hurtado's comprehensive study yields definitive answers to questions like these: How important was this formative period to later Christian tradition? When did the divinization of Jesus first occur? Was early Christianity influenced by neighboring religions? How did the idea of Jesus' divinity change old views of God? And why did the powerful dynamics of early beliefs and practices encourage people to make the costly move of becoming a Christian?

Boasting an unprecedented breadth and depth of coverage — the book speaks authoritatively on everything from early Christian history to themes in biblical studies to New Testament Christology — Hurtado's "Lord Jesus Christ" is at once significant enough that a wide range of scholars will want to read it and accessible enough that general readers interested at all in Christian origins will also profit greatly from it.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Larry W. Hurtado is professor of New Testament language, literature, and theology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 746 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802860702
• ISBN-13: 978-0802860705
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, July 23, 2006

By 

Steve Jackson "stevejackson100atyahoocom" (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Paperback)

A standard "liberal" view of Jesus is that he was a simple religious teacher (perhaps at most a prophet) who did not make unique claims about himself. However, the early church took Jesus' message and converted it to a message about Jesus. Typically Paul the Apostle is made the culprit. Paul is often taken as a Hellenistic Jew who interpreted Jesus in the context of Greek religion thereby converting Jesus into a demigod.

Jesus' earliest followers were almost exclusively Jewish and their theology was rigidly monotheistic. Yet, even in the earlier NT writings Jesus it the object of cultic devotion, prayers are said in his name, OT writings referring to God are interpreted as referring to him, and he is confessed as the preexistent Son of God. By the time of Revelation (perhaps the last NT book written, circa 95 AD) Jesus is worshipped alongside the father. How is it that monotheistic Jews ended up with a sort of "binitarianism"? This "explosion" of devotion to Jesus cries out for examination. While Hurtado doesn't give an answer to why the earliest Christians began worshipping Jesus (other than a somewhat nebulous discussion of their "experience" of Jesus), his discussion of this unmistakable phenomenon in the NT is outstanding.

Hurtado's approach is systematic. He analyzes the various strata of the New Testament chronologically (Paul, Acts, Q, the Synoptics, Johannine literature, later NT documents) and discusses the apocryphal Gospels (such as Thomas and Peter), he then ends circa 170 AD. Within each strata, he discusses the author's beliefs about Jesus and devotion to him. Hurtado accepts the commonly held beliefs concerning the authorship of dating of the NT books (the only exception is that he considers II Thessalonians likely by Paul).

Particularly effective is Hurtado's discussion of Paul. Paul was converted to Christianity shortly after Jesus' death and his first letter (probably I Thessalonians) shows an unmistakable belief in the preexistence of Jesus. In addition, while Paul quarreled with other Christians concerning many issues, Christology wasn't one of them. And if other Christians saw Paul as a religious innovator transforming the simple Galilean peasant into God, then one might expect to find some hint of this dispute within the NT, yet there isn't any.

Many readers will find Hurtado's discussion of the apocryphal Gospels most interesting. This collection of material - which almost certainly is later than the four gospels in our NT - diverges from what became orthodox Christianity in a number of ways. Nonetheless, Jesus is depicted as a heavenly being coming down from heaven to dispense esoteric wisdom.

My only complaints about this book are that the later NT literature (Pastorals, General Epistles and Revelation) aren't discussed in detail and Hurtado doesn't directly discuss the development of Trinitarian thought. Of course, Hurtado had to put some limits on the book, but I felt a bit cheated after reading 653 pages of text.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding work of scholarship, August 15, 2006

By 

a reader "a reader" (Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Paperback)

This landmark study is the best account I have come across of early Christianity. Speculation is kept to a minimum and the author deals with the evidence that we have from early Christian writings. His approach to these writings is to read between the lines and look at what we can tell about how the authors tell us things rather than what they tell us. The other strength is that the early Christian world is considered firmly in the context of the Jewish and later Gentile communities in which it developed. The author has certain presuppositions, e.g, that not all of Paul's letters were written by Paul. Also, he deals objectively with the role of religious experience in the development of Christ devotion. That is, neither affirming nor discounting any explanations of what such the actuality of these experiences, he simply looks at what accounts of these experiences can tell us about how early Christians worshipped and lived out their faith. Although this is really an academic text which deals quite comprehensively with a number of complex topics, the book never dries up and the author's style of writing carries you along. Essential reading for anyone interested in early Christianity, I can't recommend it strongly enough.

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Overturning Bousset, February 19, 2006

By 

David S. Ritsema (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Hardcover)

Hurtado wastes no time in upsetting the German-historical model of Wilhelm Bousett. Bousett has postulated that the high christology of the NT was a historical progression in which the earliest Christian communities did not whole to the idea of Jesus as Lord and God. Hurtado shows how the earliest evidence in the NT points to the fact that not only did people like Paul hold to this high view of Christ, but this view had been in place for sometime and in fact had no time to actually develop; it had to have been in place from the beginning. He goes on to explain in chapters 3-6 that the Gospels (Jesus Books) express high christological language consistent with Paul and in place from the beginning. Even Q does not differentiate from what is found in Paul and other texts.